MD of Pincher Creek to change mobile home park tax collection method

Toni Lucas - At their August 22 meeting council for the MD of Pincher Creek passed a bylaw recommended by Director of Finance Janene Felker that the MD's tax assessor have "the ability to assess the entire property (land and improvements) in the name of the mobile home park's owner rather than individual mobile homes. In turn, the MD would only collect taxes from the park owner."  According to Felker the recommendation was made because "Administration continues to have issues with collecting taxes from mobile homes located within the mobile home park in Lundbreck."


Felker's report to council included analyses of similar bylaws in Vauxhall, St. Paul, and Red Deer County.

"In the MGA it says the bylaw needs to be advertised once it's passed, which is fine, but it can't come into effect until the beginning of the year following twelve months, so I pushed the effective date of the bylaw back to 2019," said Felker.  In her report she added "In addition, municipal affairs was contacted and they reiterated most of the information above and mentioned that they are getting more queries regarding this clause as municipalities across the province continue to struggle with collection of taxes from manufactured homes."